What is in this article?:

Find out what nutrients to include in your diet and what supplements to take to preserve your vision and eye health. Top choices include lutein and zeaxanthin, omega-3s, coQ10, and flavonoids.

If you’re over 40, chances are good that you’re regarding this article from a distance to read it. That’s because the eye’s lens system loses its flexibility with age—a condition called presbyopia—making focusing on nearby objects more difficult. “Presbyopia happens to everyone eventually,” says ophthalmologist Neal Adams, MD, director of the Collaborative Vision Research Program and author of Nutrition for the Eye (Stanley, 2009).

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), cataracts, and glaucoma can also cloud vision, especially after age 60. But, Adams says, optimizing nutrition may prevent or minimize certain types of visual disease, such as AMD, and may even reverse mild cases of dry eye, a condition he says affects one in six people. If you had the perfect diet, says Jeffrey Anshel, OD, president of the Ocular Nutrition Society, you could probably get enough nutrients to keep your peepers perky. Everyone else should consider supplements. Focus on these for their promising eye-health benefits.